FRONT ROYAL – Gambling at Randolph-Macon Academy as a teen paid off just fine for Ed Clark.

Ed, 93, and his bride, Patty Clark, 91, celebrated 70 years of marriage Thursday — a feat made possible by Clark’s misdeed, the couple’s serendipitous meeting at a church youth group and a lifetime of love.

Patty, who was 15 at the time, recalled phoning a friend after meeting Ed to tell her she’d just met the man she was going to marry.

“Well, I said I wasn’t getting married any time soon,” she remembered with a smile in the couple’s Washington Avenue home, reflecting on the early days of their relationship.

Ed, who moved around a bit as a kid, mostly grew up in Richmond. Describing himself as a poor student, he said that he came to Front Royal to attend R-MA as an eighth grader in 1948.

“One

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